Although most upwardly mobile managers know that an empowered team enhances their performance, the everyday reality of corporate hierarchy and a compulsion to control their own fate can cloud that awareness. Many companies, particularly in the U.S. and Western Europe, are abandoning the top-down, command--and-control model. Nevertheless, lots of managers still apply it, triggering a vicious cycle. When confronted with such a boss, employees respond by jealously guarding their only source of power—their distinctive experience—and the team are driven apart. The members may remain functionally interdependent, but that interdependence is ineffective, which means that a lot of value is squandered.

A manager we’ll call Tom was a midlevel sales executive at a Fortune 500 company. After a dozen or so years there, he was thriving—he made his numbers, he was well liked, he got consistently positive reviews. He applied for a promotion that would put him in charge of a high-profile worldwide product-alignment initiative, confident that he was the top candidate and that this was the logical next move for him, a seemingly perfect fit for his skills and ambitions. His track record was solid. He’d made no stupid mistakes or career-limiting moves, and he’d had no run-ins with upper management. He was stunned, then, when a colleague with less experience got the job. What was the matter?

Finding that first market — a few customers willing to pay for your early product — is hard enough. But there's one thing that may be even harder. And that's finding the second market. Especially because companies are often so focused on protecting what they already have.

In 1996 when Steve Jobs returned to Apple, I was in charge of an industry-recognized channel program for the company that was responsible for growing a $2M business to $180M business in 18 months. By working with a few dedicated partners — some were called "value-added-resellers" and some were national retailers such as Best Buy — Apple was able to grow its sales exponentially.

More than 100 studies have now found that the most engaged employees — those who report they're fully invested in their jobs and committed to their employers — are significantly more productive, drive higher customer satisfaction and outperform those who are less engaged.

But only 20 per cent of employees around the world report that they're fully engaged at work.

It's a disconnect that serves no one well. So what's the solution? Where is the win-win for employers and employees?

All I ever needed to know about change management I learned at engineering school

You don't just "build" the organization, you make it "go round and round." "Give me a lever," he said, "and I will move the world." Is your change exothermic or endothermic?

I have always been fascinated by how things work. As a child, I would follow my father around the yard, helping him with various projects. How, I wondered, did the load in the wheelbarrow always balance? Why could I move a big rock with a crowbar, but not without? How does cement dry underwater?